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A JOURNEY TOWARD SAFE DRINKING WATER FOR ALL WATER SAFETY PLAN COUNTRY REPORT FOR SRI LANKA CONTENTS Acknowledgements 2 WSP journey in Sri Lanka 5 WSP journey begins 9 Indian Ocean Tsunami 9 Hepatitis A outbreak 9 Risk Management tools introduced 9 Government commitment in 2009 9 NWSDB staff awareness campaign 10 Advocacy and capacity building phase 11 Advocacy secures stakeholder buy-in 11 Tailored training to build national expertise 13 Impact Assessment and Auditing Training 15 WSP Acceleration – Establishment of the Water Safety Plan Advisory Unit (WSPAU) 17 Scaling up of WSP implementation 21 Emergency and incident management 23 Reward and Recognition 23 New era in WSP auditing 25 Internal Auditing 25 Independent External Auditing 26 Rural and community WSP progress 29 The journey ahead 33 References 35 WATER SAFETY PLAN COUNTRY REPORT FOR SRI LANKA 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWSDB), Sri Lanka wish to express their appreciation to all whose efforts made this publication possible. In particular, contributions from following representatives of national institutions, current and past NWSDB staff, WHO Regional and Country Office staff, The Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka, WHO consultants, Independent auditors and Yarra Valley Water, Melbourne, Australia staff are gratefully acknowledged. Special thanks to Dr Razia Pendse, WHO Country Representative to Sri Lanka and Dr Virginie Mallawaarachchi, National Professional Officer, WHO country Office, Sri Lanka for their ongoing guidance and support including funding for the independent external audits and this publication. AUTHOR CITATIONS Asoka Jayaratne, Yarra Valley Water/ WHO H M Abeykoon Bandara, National Water Supply and David Sutherland, World Health Organization, Consultant, Australia Drainage Board, Sri Lanka Thailand Tharanga Udagedara, Uva-Wellasa University, REVIEWER E A Edirisinghe, National Water Supply and Drainage Board, Sri Lanka Sri Lanka Angella Rinehold, WHO, Switzerland H M J Herath, Department of National Community J Vijayabalan, National Water Supply and Drainage CONTRIBUTORS Water Supply, Sri Lanka Board, Sri Lanka Sardha Mangala Rajapaksha, National Water Supply Darry Jackson, Independent Consultant, Water & Lalith Weerasekara, National Water Supply and and Drainage Board, Sri Lanka Sanitation, Australia Drainage Board, Sri Lanka S K Weragoda, National Water Supply and Drainage Ananda Jayaweera, Regional Centre for Sanitation, Kamal Wickramasinghe, National Water Supply and Board, Sri Lanka Sri Lanka Drainage Board, Sri Lanka Athambawa Mohamedthamby, National Water EDITOR EXTERNAL AUDIT COORDINATORS Supply and Drainage Board, Sri Lanka Grace Rose-Miller, Yarra Valley Water, Australia Neil Abeysekara, The Institution of Engineers, Payden, WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia, Sri Lanka DOCUMENT DESIGN AND LAYOUT India Wasantha Gunawardena, National Water Supply and Natalia Hernandez, Yarra Valley Water, Australia P A J U N P Perera, National Water Supply and Drainage Board, Sri Lanka Drainage Board, Sri Lanka N U K Ranathunga, Water Supply and Sanitation Improvement Project, Sri Lanka Nihal Rathnayake, National Water Supply and Drainage Board, Sri Lanka Sumitha Sumanaweera, Independent External Cover photo - Courtesy Sri Rahula College, Kandy. Auditor for The Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka WATER SAFETY PLAN COUNTRY REPORT FOR SRI LANKA 3 About Us 1 WSP JOURNEY WSP JOURNEY IN SRI LANKA IN SRI LANKA Water supplied by NWSDB Water not supplied by NWSDB Sri Lanka often referred to as the “pearl of the Indian ocean” has a proud history of over 2500 years dating back to 600 B.C. Ancient water supply infrastructure marvels such as the “Giant Canal” where gentle but accurate slope makes it sometimes difficult to observe the flow of water to the naked eye and a network of large water supply/irrigation reservoirs are a testimony to Payden, WHO Regional Office engineering excellence in water for South-East Asia, India resource development and WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia (SEARO) has management. been promoting and advocating the use of water safety planning as a proactive approach of securing drinking Modern Sri Lanka faces a multitude of challenges related water quality since 2006. In 2013, WHO/SEARO and to water resources management and drinking water supply. the NWSDB forged a partnership to implement water At the forefront is the need for a robust process to ensure safety plans. WHO has supported several national supply of safe and clean drinking water to the island’s 21 and regional WSP training activities, development of a million people living in the 65,610 square kilometre area. roadmap and capacity building on WSP auditing. This Water Safety Plans (WSP) have been recognised as a major has led to the formation of a National WSP Committee contributor to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals who provides training and oversees implementation of (SGGs) in Sri Lanka. WSPs. WHO had developed a pool of 14 WSP Master The National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWSDB) Trainers for the region and three of them are from Sri manages 342 water supply schemes in Sri Lanka. These Lanka. The three Master trainers or WSP champions schemes cover approximately 40% of the total population have led the institutionalization of WSPs in the country (Figure 1). In addition, rural water supply schemes operated by developing WSP training manuals, conducting by local government authorities and community-based numerous trainings, mentoring WSP implementers organizations provide a piped water supply to about 10% and supporting setting up a water safety plan auditing of the population. The NWSDB Master Plan aims to increase system which is first of its kind in the region. The credit access to piped water supply up to 60% by year 2020. goes to the three WSP champions. Figure 1 — Coverage of NWSDB’s urban water supply schemes. WATER SAFETY PLAN COUNTRY REPORT FOR SRI LANKA 5 1 WSP JOURNEY IN SRI LANKA David Sutherland, WHO, Thailand I first came into contact with the NWSDB in Sri Lanka in 2015, in my capacity as Regional Coordinator for the Drinking Water Quality Partnership between WHO and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. They had already prepared their roadmap for implementing WSPs and had started on implementation. The thing that has been so impressive is that Sri Lanka has followed the roadmap so closely. The road map shared a vision and showed how it was going to achieve that vision. Sri Lanka has followed the road map almost to the letter, from early advocacy, to establishment of Steering Committees and learning through piloting, assessment and sharing on demonstration projects to longer term strategy development, policy and regulatory strengthening to A commitment from the NWSDB management to large scale implementation and monitoring of WSPs. establish a dedicated WSP Advisory Unit is a major However, despite following the general WHO roadmap milestone in the WSP journey. WSP experts in this recommendations, they ensured that all activities, advisory unit immensely benefited from the regional tools and strategies were appropriate to their Training of Trainers (TOT) Programs offered by the WHO. national context. These national experts have been tirelessly delivering training, internal auditing and advisory services to the This demonstrated that they had really thought about 74 WSPs fully developed since 2016 (Table 1) spanning what WSPs could give to Sri Lanka and how best to across 11 Regional Support Centres. implement and monitor them. They started slightly later than other countries in the region but quickly got As a result of WSP implementation, significant water into the fast lane and overtook other countries in the quality and process improvements have been achieved. Figure 2 — Greater Kandy Water Treatment Plant. region and are closer to achieving a sustainable model These include infrastructure, operations and management, for water safety planning than anywhere else. finance, stakeholder communication, water loss reduction, water quality surveillance and improved consumer The existence of a national organization responsible satisfaction. Some of these achievements are for the majority of drinking-water supply presents The challenge of developing 342 WSPs is exacerbated Recognising the contribution of safe and clean water documented in the paper “Measuring the Impacts operational advantages and is almost unique in the by the 4500 rural and community water supply schemes supply for a healthy community, the NWSDB with the of Water Safety Plans”.1 region but nevertheless they have used this advantage managed by local authorities and small community guidance of the Ministry of Urban Development, Water to the maximum and have much to share with the rest groups. The WSP process has been gradually extended The latest addition to the objectives in the WSP Roadmap Supply and Drainage adopted the WHO recommended of the region and beyond. WHO has enjoyed working to these sectors with support from UNICEF, WHO and is the trialling of an external audit process in 14 urban proactive risk management approach of WSPs in 2013. with Sri Lanka on WSPs and is proud of what has been the World Bank. The NWSDB Strategic Plan aims to WSPs to set up a sustainable independent external audit WSP Road Map was updated to establish a clear achieved and is confident that this will be sustained implement WSPs in all urban water supply schemes by system. This innovative auditing system has the potential pathway for WSP implementation after a series into the future. It shows the advantage of strategic (but the end of 2020. to be extended to other countries in the region. of strategic stakeholder workshops in 2016 with WHO, realistic) thinking and planning and, most importantly World Bank, Water Supply and Sanitation Improvement Sri Lanka has demonstrated rapid progress in WSP Key learnings of the WSP journey and achievements implementing those plans. Every step of the original Program (WASSIP) and National Universities. implementation especially for urban water supply presented in this report encourage the wider WSP roadmap has been successfully climbed in the order schemes in four years since 2016.

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